Confessor: Chainfire Trilogy Part 3

"From that moment on, no one will laugh. Instead, each team who has to face us will worry. When men worry, they make mistakes. Every time they make one of those mistakes we will be ready to pounce. We will make their worry warranted. We will bring their worst fears to life. We will prove every sleepless moment of cold sweat to have been justified.

"The second team we beat by twelve points.

"And then, the next team will be even more fearful of us."

Richard waved his red finger in the direction of the soldiers on the team. "You know the effectiveness of such tactics. You crushed any city that stood against you so that those yet to be conquered trembled in fear as they waited for you to come. Those people knew your reputation and they greatly feared your arrival. Their fear allowed you to more easily conquer them."

The soldiers grinned. They could now put Richard's plan in a frame of reference that they understood.

"We want to make all the other teams afraid of the team with the red, painted faces." Richard fisted his free hand. "Then, we will crush each of them in turn."

In the sudden silence, the men all made fists to match his and thumped them to their chests in oaths that they would make it so. These men all wanted to win, each for his own reason.

None of those reasons was anything like Richard's reason.

He hoped not to ever have to play the emperor's team-he hoped to get his chance long before then-but he had to be prepared to go that far, if necessary. He knew that a good chance might not come along before then. Should it not, he had to insure that they reached the final game of the tournament, when he was more confident of getting the chance he would need.

Richard finally turned back to Johnrock and in short order completed the drawing with a few emblems that symbolized massive weight behind an attack, drawing them down each of Johnrock's heavily muscled arms.

"Do me next, will you, Ruben?" one of the men asked.

"Then me," another called out.

"One at a time," Richard said. "Now, as I'm working, we need to go over our strategy. I want each man to go into this game knowing exactly what to do. We all have to know the plan so that we can all follow it. We all have to know the signals. I want for us to be ready to rush the opponent from the first instant. I want to knock the wind out of them while they're still laughing."

Each man in turn sat on the overturned bucket and let Richard paint his face. Richard approached each man as if the drawing was a matter of life and death. In a way it was.

The men had all been pulled in by Richard's sober lecture. A solemn mood settled over them as they sat silently watching their point man draw what only Richard knew were some of the most deadly concepts he knew how to create. Even if they didn't understand the language behind those symbols, they understood the meaning behind what Richard was doing. They could see that each man looked fearsome.

As each man was completed, Richard realized that it was like looking at a nearly complete collection of the designs that made up the dance with death, with elements of the boxes of Orden thrown in for good measure.

The only symbols he'd left out were the ones he was saving for himself, the elements of the dance that invoked the most deadly of cuts-the ones that cut into the enemy's very soul.

One of the soldiers on his team offered Richard a polished piece of metal so that he could see himself as he began to apply the elements of the dance with death. He dunked his finger in the red paint, thinking of it as blood.

The men all watched in rapt attention. This was their leader in battle, the one they followed in Ja'La dh Jin. This was his new face and they were all serious about learning it.

As a final element, Richard added the lightning bolts of the Con Dar, the symbols representing a power Kahlan had invoked when the two of them had been trying to stop Darken Rahl from opening the boxes of Or-den and she thought that Richard had been killed. It was a power meant for vengeance.

Thinking about Kahlan, her memory lost, her identity taken from her, being at the mercy of Jagang and the evil beliefs of the Order, as well as picturing her in his mind with that lurid bruise on her face, made his blood boil with rage.

Con Dar meant "Blood Rage."

CHAPTER 10

Kahlan kept an arm protectively around Jillian as they followed closely behind Jagang. The emperor's entourage made its way through the sprawling encampment to the silent awe of some, and the cheers of many. Some chanted Jagang's name as he passed, shouting encouragement for his leadership in their fight to exterminate opposition to the Imperial Order, while many more lauded him as "Jagang the Just." It never failed to dishearten her that so many could view him-or the Fellowship of Order itself-as custodians of justice.